Burgundy
by amphritie
Summary: A Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell fanfic. Stephen Black is finally able to explore on his own in Lost-Hope, and what he finds is surprising.
1. One

On one of the early days of his enchanted time in Lost-hope, Stephen Black found himself left without the usually constant presence of the gentleman with the thistledown hair.

They had been walking through one of the innumerable dusty, winding corridors of the highest tower of Lost-Hope, with the gentleman expounding on the merits of the windows to be found at the top of the tower.

"Stephen, when you are king, I shall install windows for you in Westminster which far exceed the poor ones here. From the ones I possess, you can only see what has happened, what you did not wish to know, and what you do not wish to happen, but you shall have windows which look out upon-"* the gentleman abruptly stopped speaking and frowned. He seemed to curse in a language that Stephen did not know, and then disappeared, accompanied only by the distant sound of a door slamming.

While Stephen would, in the long months to follow, grow accustomed to the gentleman's strange comings and goings, this first disappearance left him surprised at his sudden freedom.

He found a small window (an ordinary window, thankfully) and peered out. The immense distance above the ground at which he found himself made his stomach turn, so he turned about and attempted to retrace the path he and the gentleman had taken. After coming across several dead ends, he finally found the steep, narrow staircase leading down

During the long way down, he tried to be only mildly perturbed at the things he saw. The stone walls were festooned with all manner of odd decorations. He passed a tapestry hung on the wall that appeared to depict scenes from his own childhood, but that so differed in certain startling particulars as to make Stephen doubt his own recollections.** Several turns of the staircase later, he could not help but notice the ivy which grew on the inside wall improbably far any natural genesis, and which had also burst into bloom with flowers that looked very much like the faces of sleeping children.*** He reached out to touch one and it stirred against his touch, but did not seem to wake. After the strange ivy he noticed a figure of a raven scratched into one of the grey stones just at Stephen's eye level. It looked extraordinarily ancient, and he reached out to touch it. As his fingers met the stone, he heard harsh cawing in his ears and a far-off voice saying words that sounded similar to the language of the curse that the gentleman with the thistledown hair has uttered earlier. Startled, he withdrew his touch and the sounds ceased. As he continued his descent, Stephen did not notice the black crow's feather which fell on the worn stone step behind him.

After what seemed like hours but could have been days, Stephen emerged from the staircase into the great banqueting hall where the gentleman and his endless array of strange guests danced night after night. Today, however, the hall was deserted except for a few shadowy denizens in corners, and Stephen decided that the wiser course was to steer clear of them. He wandered through a few nondescript corridors and found himself at a brass-bound, oaken door he had never seen before in his few wanderings with the gentleman. He tried the handle, and, finding it unlocked, pushed it all the way open.

He found himself stepping out into a place the likes of which he had never encountered in Lost-hope. It appeared to be the courtyard around which the great house was centred, but it looked more like a great, wildly overgrown garden. It looked as if it had not been tended to in a hundred years or more, but it was still beautiful for all of that. The garden possessed the air of an utterly forgotten place, and Stephen was entranced by its sweet, sad air. Here, though, the sadness was not the oppressive weight that it was in the rest of Lost-hope, and the sky that Stephen could see above the walls was a rosy, dawn-lit pink.

All in all, it was a very pleasing respite, and he intended to enjoy it. He wandered along the narrow, nearly overgrown paths, noticing the sprays of roses which fell across his path and the lilies nodding in great, snow-white drifts. At last, he came to a clearing with a broken, crumbling fountain in the center, and upon the fountain's edge sat a girl.

She was not the strangest or most beautiful personage that Stephen had beheld at Lost-hope, but she still warranted a second look. Her chestnut hair was piled high on her head and cascaded down in a long, long tangle of curls into which was thickly woven a continuous vine of morning-glories. The starry white flowers against her hair were lovely, but her ragged dress appeared to be made of an old dusty, dirty moss-green curtain. Its diaphanous form draped unceremoniously from her skinny shoulders, and there were several smudges of dirt on her cheek. Her feet were bare and mud-crusted, and on her arms and throat she bore innumerable scratches. Her mouth was stained a deep, dark red, almost purple.

Stephen soon realized that he was beginning to stare, and so he offered a bow.

"Madam, my name is Stephen Black. I beg your pardon for intruding." Straightening up, he looked for a reply, and found none forthcoming. The girl just looked at him, sitting stock still. In fact, the only point distinguishing her from a well-colored statue was the rise and fall of her clavicle, proving her possession of breath. The silence stretched for several moments, until Stephen could bear it no longer and spoke again. "Madam, if I may beg the liberty, may I ask what your name is?"

The girl just shook her head, but her eyes looked so earnest that Stephen couldn't think that she was intending to be rude. She made as if attempting to speak, but she didn't open her mouth and all that came was a gurgling sound from deep in her throat. She shook her head again, looking mournful. Stephen was intrigued. Before he could inquire as to her identity further, however, she suddenly slid off the edge of the fountain to land swaying on the toes of her bare feet. Righting herself, she turned quickly away from Stephen and disappeared into a nearby tangle of rosebushes.

Stephen started after her, but at that moment the gentleman with the thistledown hair reappeared with the sound of a crash and a small, bright shower of mirror shards. Brushing away any spare bits of broken glass, the gentleman took Stephen's arm. He seemed in much better spirits than formerly, and he merely frowned briefly at their surroundings and transported the two of them to another featureless stone corridor somewhere in the depths of Lost-hope.  
Smiling, the gentleman said exuberantly, "Stephen, how I have missed you! The trials which I bear on your behalf are beyond measure, but I will bear them faithfully for you. When you are king, Stephen, you may find…" The gentleman continued on, but Stephen's thoughts were with the dark-mouthed morning glory girl in the garden. He only hoped that she wouldn't cut her unshod feet on the glittering mess of mirror shards that the gentleman had left behind.

*The gentleman would have told Stephen that his intended improved windows for Westminster included apertures that would allow the viewer to see everything that he was intended by others not to see, and everything that he ever wanted but was very unlikely to have. The first type of window was a more common enchantment, and all it tended to do was breed mistrust and break up marriages. The gentleman would have neglected to mention, however, that the second window was thought to be found in the castle of the Raven King, and that John Uskglass had forbidden anyone to look through it, as it drove the viewer mad.

**For instance, Stephen was certain that a lady dressed all in white had not followed three steps behind him all the days of his childhood, and nor had he ever possessed a cat with green eyes.

***These flowers are a very great mystery. The only place they are truly known to grow is in the strange country on the far side of Hell, and there only where things have happened that you have never heard tell of, they are so unsettling. If plucked from the vine, they will scream, and the wrists of the picker will begin to bleed with blood that does not belong to them. As to how they came to be in the tower, it was known among the aureate magicians that John Uskglass tended to a glade filled with them in that strange country on the far side of Hell. Seeds might easily have fallen from the hem of his coat and taken root on those steps, but facts pertaining to the presence of the Raven King in Lost-hope are unfounded and shaky at best. John Uskglass also may have taken a silver knife and scratched the figure of a raven into the stones of the place, but for what purpose no one can be certain.


	2. Two

Several days passed before Stephen Black gathered the courage to ask the gentleman with the thistledown hair about the garden and the dark-mouthed girl. The gentleman was in Stephen's room, arranging some jewels that he had brought for him. They looked exceedingly ancient, and the gentleman has been expounding upon their properties for some time.

"Now, this one, Stephen," said the gentleman, holding up a ruby the size of a turnip dangling from a gold chain, "this one was worn by Bazajet II during the third conquering of Constantinople, and he had one of his generals beheaded for claiming that he saw their failure to take the city reflected in it."* The gentleman looped it around Stephen's neck and stepped back to admire the effect.

Even though the chain and jewel were nearly unbearably heavy, Stephen left the necklace where it was, dangling incongruously against his white shirt. He didn't want to risk the gentleman's displeasure by moving it and so spoil this moment for asking about the garden.

The gentleman's pale brows furrowed at the question, but he spoke lightly. "That old place, Stephen? I'm surprised you should care about such a useless tangle of weeds. I keep meaning to get rid of it, but the roses really are startlingly tenacious. But if its existence bothers you, my dear Stephen, you have only to say the word, and-"

"Oh, no, sir," Stephen interrupted hastily. "I, ah, actually found it a rather charming place, sir." He reflected that the wiser course of action might be to not mention the girl with the purple-red mouth.

The gentleman assumed a rather sharp expression. "Stephen, one of those thorns did not _scratch_ you, did they? I know that you, with your patient disposition, would tolerate such a trespass, but I cannot be expected to, Stephen, for your sake." Stephen assured the gentleman that he has made it through the garden unscathed, and the gentleman seemed satisfied.

That night, Stephen was once again caught up in one of the strange dances at Lost-hope. The lone piper and violinist piped and scraped away their mournful music, and with each whirl of the dance Stephen hoped to catch a glimpse of the girl with the purple mouth.

He was unsuccessful, however, until he finally managed to break away from the crowd of dancers. The gentleman with the thistledown hair was talking animatedly to a man with shark's teeth, and Stephen was glad for the chance to slip away. He turned a few crumbling-down stone corners and corridors before he came upon the very same door that led into the garden. He was quite surprized- had never known to see the same part of Lost-hope twice thus far, excepting the large hall where the dances were held. The door opened just as easily as it had the first time, and Stephen tried to take the same path.

This time, however, the roses seemed very different. Stephen was sure, for instance, that he had never seen a rose quite that delicate shade of blue before. The path was not the same, either. He kept coming across odd statuary and no matter how many different turns he took, he didn't see the broken fountain.

Stephen wandered without purpose, now. He did find a little clear stream which prettily reflected the sunset sky above (it was never quite the right time of day, here). He sat on the damp moss of the bank until a shadow blocked the fading light.

Stephen looked up and saw the remarkable hair of the gentleman shining in the last rays of the sun. He was afraid of the gentleman's reaction to Stephen's absence from the festivities, but the gentleman merely smiled genially and snapped his fingers.

Stephen sighed. He was once again in the great hall, being tormented by the melancholy music. He let himself be turned and twirled through the steps of the dance until the music finally paused. Breathless, Stephen found himself alone in a rather nondescript corner of one of the farther rooms off of the great hall, the noise of the dancers receding as the grouped back into the larger room. A corridor led off of this room, and he supposed that he might as well continue to explore, if the gentleman was going to be in such a congenial mood.

He came to a courtyard open to a night sky that was replete with unrecognisable constellations. The walls were overgrown with vines, and the corners shadowy. A fountain in the centre, this one in considerably better repair than its mate in the garden, flowed with rather muddy water.

Stephen would have turned back had he not heard a sound from the farthest corner of the courtyard. Curious now, he crept closer, not wanting to alert one of the stranger residents of Lost-hope by making any drastic movements.

Instead of some strange creature, Stephen saw the girl from the garden, wearing the same dirty, moss-green dress in which he had seen her last-but this time, it looked like she was being kissed rather forcefully by the tall man with the shark's teeth that Stephen had seen talking to the gentleman earlier that evening. Stephen probably would have left then, not wishing to intrude, if it had not been for the way her eyelids fluttered and the extreme pallor of her cheek. She did not look passionate…rather, she looked as though she could not breathe.

At last the shark-toothed man broke away from her, wiped his mouth, and strode back towards the hall with hardly a glance for Stephen. The girl sagged against the wall for support, and Stephen rushed to her, catching her and lowering her more safely to the ground.

She was still pale, but she sat up without falling over again. Stephen noticed that her mouth was stained a deep red all around as well as being covered in tiny bite marks, thanks to the shark-toothed man. Stephen knelt on the ground beside her.

"Madam, what has happened to you? Who is that man? And-" The girl shook her head exhaustedly. Stephen saw that she had finger-shaped bruises around her neck and that the morning-glories in her hair were partially torn out and falling over one eye.

The girl saw the inquiries on Stephen's face and she sighed through her nose-Stephen noted that she never seemed to open her mouth for anything.

But then she did exactly that, and Stephen saw that her mouth was filled with a deep red wine, as if she had drunk some and forgotten to swallow. Stephen would have asked another question, but she shook her head again and stood up. Stephen rose with her, in case she should fall, and followed her to the fountain. She bent her head and opened her mouth again, and a long stream of red, red wine spilled from her mouth into the muddy water. After a moment, when the wine seemed to run out, she righted herself and turned to face Stephen. She opened her mouth once more, this time with tears in her eyes, and Stephen saw that her mouth was once again filled. He felt filled with sympathy for this girl, used as a drunken amusement for the fey folk of Lost-Hope.

He would have spoken to her once more, but he felt the gentleman's hand on his shoulder and he was whisked away once more, to his room, with the sun just rising.

*This story of the gentleman's is certainly very strange, and not at all consistent with the version of history accepted today. The jewel of Bazajet II is mentioned in an accounting of the sultan's treasures, but no trace of it has been ever been found in any present-day reckoning. In addition, Constantinople is only known to have fallen once.


	3. Three

That morning, Stephen was settling Lady Pole in her usual place in the library, as Pampisford was in bed with a terrible cold. Lady Pole looked particularly sad and desperate this morning, and she tried to speak with Stephen of their forced sojourns to Lost-hope.

It was that day that Stephen Black and Lady Pole discovered their inability to speak of their condition even to each other, and few things could have saddened them more. Rather than speaking of her depressed state of mind, Lady Pole told a very strange tale, and as it is worth recounting and very relevant to Stephen's present interests, I shall set it down here.

"Stephen, in 1307 there was a young girl, the daughter of the lord of a village outside of Newcastle. She was nearly seventeen years of age, and a prouder, vainer little thing there never walked upon this earth. She tossed her chestnut curls at every suitor who came calling, and she was ever so fond of braiding flowers into that lovely hair." At this Stephen might have given a little start of familiarity and surprize, but Lady Pole did not-or could not- notice, and she continued with her narrative.

"The girl attracted the attention of the Raven King, and he paid court to her in the guise of a young knight. She scorned him, however, even when he paid her the prettiest of compliments. She scathingly replied that she wished she might be able to intoxicate her suitors with words as silly and pretty as his, and the King grew unusually angry at her insolence. He cursed her pretty curls to always tangle, and for her mouth to always fill with wine, so that she could intoxicate her suitors all she wished. When she cried at finding the punishment meted out, her tears were-" but before she could conclude this tale, Lady Pole began to sob as she realized that she had not said what she intended in the least. Stephen availed her with a handkerchief and sat by her side, very much moved at his lady's sorrow.

Finally, the lady's sobs subsided and she sent Stephen away. Feeling even more melancholy than usual, he gave the day's orders to the house servants and then made his way to the stables. The day was cold and grey, with a light drizzle of rain falling meanly on Stephen as he went down to see to the coachman and the horses. Finding everything in good order, he was about to go back into the kitchen to see about some tea when, instead of turning the familiar corner into the kitchen, he found himself walking along the Thames in the company of the gentleman with the thistle-down hair.

"Now, Stephen," said the gentleman merrily, "we simply must see about improving our little affairs at Lost-Hope. I can't help but feel that the refreshment, at least, is rather lacking."

"Oh, yes, sir," Stephen said with some emphasis, thinking of the drafty hall and the single fiddler.

"Ah, Stephen," sighed the gentleman, slipping an arm into his, "You and I are kindred souls! You cannot think how glad I am to have someone who is so very congenial to my interests. You and I will have many more wonderful talks when you are King. But yes, Lost-Hope! You know I think somewhere I have a girl who produces the most delightful wine. She usually tries to run and hide, of course, but upsetting her is all for the best because her tears are a simply delicious 1506 champagne-better even than the sweet champagne that I gave in that same year to a pope to poison his rivals.* I was speaking to someone about it just the other day-a perfectly brilliant plan to turn her feet to stone so that she would simply have to stay in the ballroom and be sociable. She can't really speak, naturally, but at least she can be useful somehow. Why, Stephen, you can't imagine the delicate golden flavour of that champagne."

Throughout this speech of the gentleman's Stephen had begun to feel a distinct sensation of dread. He now had some idea that the girl with her mouth full of wine was a sort of prisoner, like himself, and that he had the same kind of duty towards her as he did to Lady Pole. Right there, as he walked by the Thames with the gentleman with the thistle-down hair, unseen by all the passers-by, he resolved to find the girl again at Lost-Hope and warn her. He could do that much, at least.

*The gentleman did indeed give Pope Julius II a strange and wonderful bottle of very old champagne in return for a favour that the holy man had done him. Exactly what favour a Roman pope could do a denizen of Faerie has not yet been discovered, but this miraculous alcohol had an extraordinary property: It had to be given as a gift, and the recipient would take no harm from it. However, anyone else who tasted it would die on the spot, and it would have made an extraordinary weapon for a man with many enemies. Naturally, Pope Julius tasted the champagne and then couldn't stop drinking it until the bottle was empty. It was so intoxicating that he lost the original plans for Saint Peter's Basilica, which is why that particular structure took two centuries to build.


End file.
